For DS4SI, our creativity labs are immersive environments that assist the public in thinking more expansively about the kinds of social problems they are trying to solve. We curate these highly interactive and hands-on environments such that participants are as much in their bodies and their imaginations as they are in their words. Our aim is that our participants find unexpected and new points of convergence, develop insights about their problem they may not have considered otherwise and find new levers for creating the kinds of change they seek.
Creativity Labs can be done outdoors—catching passers-by on the street with elements of spectacle and glimpses into possible futures—or indoors as part of city-wide gatherings, conferences, and other community convenings.
As public infrastructures--hospitals, water, schools, transportation, etc--are privatized, the Public Kitchen takes a stab at going in the reverse direction. It is an installation designed to help us realize that the ways in which public infrastructures can improve the quality of our lives is still a work in progress.
From April 29th -- May 5th 2013, we engaged over 600 community members--families, artists, merchants, elders and passers-by in thinking about Uphams Corner and the planning processes going on around them. The interactive exhibit and integrated street signage aimed to lower the barrier for the public to engage in planning processes, both those already going on and ones they might want to create.
A space where participants get a hands-on chance to learn about and generate cultural tactics that support their organizing strategies. It includes both linear and nonlinear design tools to help participants design social interventions and creative actions.
In May 2015, the residents of Boston experienced an unprecedented level of public engagement. DS4SI was central in designing and producing this creativity lab where people across all walks of life would co-envision the future of Boston's transportation experience.
The HEZ Lab was a vibrant, intergenerational and bilingual space where Newport residents could interact with the data collected by fellow residents on barriers to health.
For the M / B / T / A Lab, we broadened the concept of transportation equity to look at fundamental issues of mobility, from how it impacts our human development and possible futures to how it shapes our daily emotions. We looked at public transportation across the globe and across time. We put transportation and mobility in the context of human rights and battles for these rights.
What does it take to reimagine education? Already youth organizing groups across the country are working to make schools better places and more conducive learning environments. They are engaged in fighting against school closings and punitive discipline policies, while fighting for cultural, civic and sexual health curricula, for healthy lunches, student-led teacher evaluations, etc.
Vision Lab was the centerpiece of The Praxis Project's Roots & Remedies 2 national gathering in San Antonio, Texas during the summer of 2013. Over two days, Vision Lab brought together the approximately 200 participants and challenged them to imagine a future based on winning the social justice battles of today.
Do you spend Friday nights tearing up the public Dance Court? Do you get your news about public policy and events from the free Public Times? What other new infrastructures and ideas could build a "culture of health" in your neighborhood? See what people from around the country had to say at our Culture of Health Lab.
In April 2012, the Youth 2 Youth Action Summit highlighted 3 public social interventions that youth designed with the Studio to address social violence over the past 4 years. We used a frame of taking a horizontal approach to decreasing horizontal violence and working explicitly in public and in ways that used symbols with cultural relevancy to youth.
How can community foundations learn from existing information networks on the ground to inspire new and relevant ways to collaborate?
How did drones get so popular so fast? Why is Detroit the capitol of Afro-futurism? When do students get to prototype the schools they want to learn in? Prototype Lab challenged activists from across the country to step into prototyping as a tool for creating the futures we want to live in.
What if we could stop business as usual by shutting down the 2016 elections? Or imagine an intervention that stretched the length and breadth of the Mississippi River? Momentum Lab challenged activists from across the country to build on the massive momentum of Black Lives Matter and other movements of today…
The Design Studio for Social Intervention (DS4SI) partners with communities, artists, and social justice practitioners to imagine, demonstrate, and collectively rebuild places to be more just and vibrant. Get in touch to inquire about art commissions, residencies or to hire us to run a creativity lab or other generative process for your organization, coalition or campaign.
